LSW-WebDesign

Ok, down and Dirty:

What do you gain from accessibility?

1. It is the right thing to do, none of really want to discriminate, none of really want to build barriers for people to use our service or business.
2. Unless you are the only person to offer a service or product, you have competition and you are likely always trying to keep ahead of them. You can offer those with accessibilities something that your competitor likely does not so they will come to you and tell their friends about you. I suspect you can not afford to turn away new customers and why not pick up those your competitor turned away as well?
3. Accessibility and standards go hand in hand, both improve the chance that your site will be shown the same way in all browsers that support standards and subdue the chance of mistakes in your code that may cause problems for those with disabilities. Best to always Validate your pages.
4. Accessibility and standards help future proof your site, they help to make the maintenance of the site easier and therefore cheaper and can save you money.
5. Web sites built with standards and accessibility in mind are smaller and faster loading which can help lower the overhead of your site for Bandwidth use etc.
6. Standards and accessibility require a logical layout which in turn improves useability, this makes the customer happy and increases the chance of a sale or repeat visits.
7. This logical layout using correct semantics makes the use of the site easier to the disabled user, this certainly does not make the site harder to use for the sighted so your site is easier to use to all your visitors.
8. The logical layout and the well written content you hopefully already have are great ways to rank better with search engines. However do not forget when you think to yourself that you do not have many blind users that you really have no idea how many you have but I will guarantee that you do. Search engines are blind. They do not care how nice looking your site is, they do not care if you have great flash talent. Search engines care about text and structure and nothing else. So a site that is optimised for blind visitors is optimised for search engines as well ad this can only help to raise your rankings as you help the engines serve their customers better.

What accessibility does not mean?

1. Ugly text sites. A well thought out, well written, CSS and Standards based logical site can have as many nifty graphics and pretty colours as any other site. Accessibility does not mean a site must be ugly, it does not mean that you need to have a text only site for blind users. A logical simantically written site using common sense can be just as useful with lots of graphics. Accessibility is not making extra sites, it is about making good looking sites that are still use full when those images are not there.
2. More money, now this depends on the developer, but a accessible site is not inherently more expensive when planned from the beginning. Making a current site accessible can be difficult and expensive. So why not just pay for a new site, develop it as a accessible site then release it with Fanfare! So you pay for a design and that will cost money, but think of the press coverage you can call up, the hoopla as you advertise your commitment to the disabled community! Invite disability support groups to test the site and improve it with their input and word will get around. The money you spend on the new design is easily countered against the press releases and possible gains you could have with a good press campaign.
3. Targeted at a few blind users. As I said, you do not know how many you have and you cannot afford to ignore blind users like Google and Yahoo. World wide are millions of blind users who may wish to user your service or product and you are locking them out! But note how I began, it is not about a few blind users, what of all the other disabilities? Here are just a few …
   • Dyslexics: who have trouble reading long paragraphs, justified or centred text and large complicated technical terms.
   • Cognitive problems : those who may have the same trouble reading as mentioned above or be confused my scrolling text and moving graphics.
   • Attention deficits: those who cannot sit through long paragraphs and technical terms or concentrate with bouncing blinking graphics distracting them.
   • Epilepsy: those who suffer this may be hospitalised after visiting your site with lots of blinking moving things and “MTV in your face” style fast Flash movies. Do you really want a call from a lawyer who represents a Epileptic hospitalised after visiting your site?
   • Colorblindness: is your site using colours they cannot see like red? Do you highlight important messages visually only using red text? Are your links in text only notable as such as they are red? Red on black or black on red? This is Dark Olive Green with black to many people on this planet, 1 in 10 people are colour blind and the largest group do not see red.
   • Missing limbs or motoric problems like arthritis: those who cannot use a mouse to navigate and use the keyboard instead.
   • Visually Impaired users who use a braille or screenreader that reads out the text over loudspeakers. Can be difficult when sites use background music or force new windows to open.

   Even little things like underlining text can cause problems making the text hard to read, not to mention upsetting the user who expects it to be a link. Above are just a few of the “other” other disabilities to consider. It can also be the “sighted person” with the famous “Cola Bottle Glasses”, or the young person who broke his arm last week and cannot use a mouse or the person who simply prefers the keyboard over the mouse.

4. Seeing the site as you want them too. You cannot control lighting, user agents or resolutions. So any settings can be adjusted in so many ways by the user that you cannot guarantee that your design will be seen as you wish. It is our job to make sites that are seen as closely as we can to what we wish but still look good and are usable when shown in a way needed by the user.

Simply put, accessibility is about making your site available to everyone regardless of disability, health, age, hardware or software and user agent. Making a site that works when read or seen, sites that can be adjusted through the use of CSS by the user to meet their needs. It is using common sense and offering all information in a alternative manner when not accessible (like HTML sites parallel to main Flash site for those who can not see Flash, those who do not or cannot use Flash in their user agent).

Lastly, and placed at the end as the worst reason to make accessible sites but needing mention, it is Law in a growing number of countries. The United Kingdom has the DDA. it is arguable in how much it covers web design but it does require commercial business not to discriminate. Section 508 of the United States requires Accessible web sites for all government agencies as well as all businesses that have contracts with government agencies or wish to contract with the government. Germany has a law requiring accessibility in all local and federal governmental sites. The future suggests that eventually all sites will be required by law to be accessible, so better to be in the forefront as playing follow up in a few years.

This is a standard question for most of us, we design for your customer, that is the person paying us… but it it really so? Or is it just about the old stand in "Target Audience"? No, not really. We need to design for "The Customer", the person who is going to your customers site. They are the target, they are the ones who will make the site a success or a flop. You have to design the site to meet their needs and that is where accessibility comes in.

But "Our Customers" do not always see that. Then you have to be good at selling it to them, that is my weakness. This was proven once more this last week. here is what happened:

I worked a year ago as a help desk type person for my district. One day in a meeting the representatives discovered I was a web designer and jumped at the chance for some free work for their services. My boss agreed, the help desk work was free to for them. Germany had just passed a accessibility law sort of like the DDA or Section 508. Requiring all Government offices to have accessible web sites. That was my Job, build a accessible web site, it took a year but it worked and it rates well with Google.

Now a decision has been made to build a Content Management system into it, so I spent two months working on that, looking for a good CMS. I found one I am happy with, easy to build into my site and easy to use. Only real problem I thought was that it costs money and it is only in English. As it turned out the only real problem was the editor it uses, XStandard. It is in fact a excellent editor for CMSs. It is made for web site using CSS layouts and formatting. So what is the problem you may ask? It does not offer underlining. That is what it comes down to really.

You see all formatting is handled in the CSS, all text sizes and colours, it was a finished site. But now with the CMS the employees of the organisation can and are expected to add, update and edit, or remove text on the ages for their section. That is what CMS is for. With XStandard they simply type in their text and add simple formatting and save, my CSS makes sure the pages text looks alike on all pages.

But these employees use MS Word. They have their habits and one of those habits is underlining text to make it stick out as emphasis. XStandard does not support this. So I simply explained that you do not underline text on the internet, that suggests a link and not emphasis. It will irritate the user when they click on it and nothing happens. Underline is also a visual indicator, a blind user has no knowledge of it and so the fact that that text is important slips by them. One should never use mere visual emphasis, that is why we have things like <strong> and <em> that have a syntax meaning a screenreader understands and passes along.

This was a argument that was accepted, then simply dropped as unimportant as we do not have many blind users and no reason to make the site only for the blind and not the visual users. Well that was not my point, my point was simply that by using <em> and <strong> you make the important text look important to visual users and sound important to those listening to the site. Besides those with say poor eyesight, or cognitive or reading weaknesses can find it very hard to read multiple lines of underlined text. the answer of course was that we do not have many disabled users…… so, I pointed out we do not know how many and I was hired to make the site accessible to all users! But the argument went on with the fact that the employees are used to underlining text in their paper based work and e-mails etc., we cannot simply forbid them to not use a tool they are used to. XStandard does not support underlining text, or colour changes, or text size changes. All that is meant to be done in the CSS, all XStandard does is allow for syntax, making text headers or quotes etc.. It does not allow users to choose formatting as that is done by the designer, that is what he is payed for. The employee simply needs to supply the content and make it logical using syntax.

Now I am told we cannot expect the employees to change the way they do things. Well why not? I built the web site to be used by "The Customer", a design that causes no problems for "The Customer". Now it is to be changed to suite the needs of a few employees who will rarely do anything with it any ways. The very person who hired me to make the site accessible is now having me make it so any employee can change any of the text in any way they like. They can justify text or maybe align it center (causing problems for dyslexics and other cognitive problems for instance) or align it right because they like it when every other of the 170 + pages is set left normally. They will be able to set text sizes at will in the HTML overriding my CSS and disallowing the disabled from changing the content to meet their needs by replacing the stylesheet.

I will continue to argue this until the job is done in hopes I can change their minds but see little hope. Those I am dealing with see the usefulness of the site for the employees to be more important than the usefulness of the site to "The Customer". Should we expect our customer actually have to learn the rules that pertain to web sites? Should they have to change their habits to work in this medium? Is that to much to ask? No, I think not because the web site reflects the owner, how well the web site can be used by the user reflects on how much the owner cares about the user. If a web site is hard to use but looks pretty, that tells me that the owner cares little about the user and is on a ego trip.

If you are a designer/developer, remember you have to make your customer happy, but you are the expert and in the end it is your job to make "The Customer" happy so they keep using your customers web site. If you read this as a web site owner, remember you are offering a service or info or product to your customer and have to meet their needs, so if you really care about the user, then you should learn to use the tools you have to serve them better, not just make your life easier and to keep your habits. We developers Build our web sites for the "The Customer", the end user. If we do not make them happy or they cannot use a site due to barriers, then we have failed.

Well, before you can get into Accessibility, you have to be able to write code (and because this is a list I already had finished), so my first official post is a list of Editors you may choose from.

You can write code in something like Notepad, but face it, syntax coloring to spot errors, spellcheckers and the like are all good tools to have. So with no further ranting I offer to you this list of possible editors to choose from. Some I have used, some just heard of.

I have organized it in operating system, Windows, Mac, Linux and then sub devided into Freeware and Shareware. Also a few other editors are metioned specializing for say PHP.

This page may be added or subtracted to as new programs arrive or fall away so you will need to stop by once in a while.

You may also leave comments, but keep in mind that this is to help people, so no flaming. If you noted specific problems or such than feel free to note these, or that as a beginner you found a program quite difficult……. please add only the information that can help someone make a decision and not “It Sucks!”, if you have a solid reason for not liking it, then note it, what is missing or not well done.

HTML Editors

Big Boys

• Macromedia Dreamweaver - The development Standard. Odds are if you try to get a job the company will be using this so it is better to know how to work with it. As excellent site management tools. Works as both code and WYSIWYG per Layout view. Windows / Mac
• Adobe GoLive - Has never really been able to pressure Dreamweaver, however is said to have greatly improved under the Adobe CS line. Windows / Mac
• Microsoft FrontPage - This is Microsoft’s editor. It is a fine program for dragging boxes around. You need not need to know HTML to use it. Older versions used a nasty thing called extensions that needed to be added to servers to get them to work. Under release FP2003, these have been done away with and replaced with JavaScript so they can be used on all servers. Also it is said to be much friendlier to those of us who like to code by hand or clean it’s code. I never suggest earlier FP to anyone but those who just want to do their own site, but 2003 is said to be far better for real developers. Windows / Mac.
  [Note: There is also FrontPage Express, a cutdown free version of FP that was earlier available with Office97 and Win98. It is still available for download, but only at third party web sites, so just do a search engine search. I do not know if it has been further developed or not.]
• Microsoft Expression Web Designer - This is (Currently) the first public Beta version of “Web Designer” from the Expression series of tools (Like Adobe CS and Macromedia MX). This program is replacing FrontPage and is still a WYSIWYG editor, however early tests show that it creates a much cleaner standards compliant CSS based code then FrontPage ever did.

Windows

Freeware

• HTML-Kit - My favorite under freeware. Offers many languages and extensions, supports PHP and up through C++.
• 1st Page 2000 - a very good program I used for two years. It is now a bit old in the tooth as it was written by a high school student in Australia, he is now a college student working on his degree, it is expected that a new version will be released once he finishes school.
  Note: Also there are rumors that this program has a virus. This is not true. Years ago a computer magazine re-packaged it and offered it together with a extension called “Buttons from Hell”, this additional packet included JavaScripts that triggered virus alarms but were not viruses. Most new virus programs no longer fall for the false signal.
• Amaya - Suggested by Les below, I must say it looks impressive, supporting such modern technologies as SVG, MathML 2.0, XHTML 1.1. It is a production of the W3C itself.
• Vim - I played with this in school, actually meant for Linux it has a steep learning curve as it works more with command line sort of work. But if you take the time to learn it is is very powerful. Vim is charityware
• Nvu - originally made for Linux, it is also available for Mac and Windows. It is being re-vamped and is said to be earmarked to replace the editor for Mozilla, it is also being released as a extension for Firefox. It is a WYSIWYG and good for those with little knowledge of HTML. I know many people in forums who swear by it.
• NoteTab - I have never built a site with this but often use it just to check source code of sites I visit, it is quick loading. Windows free and shareware depending on version.
• Emacs - Loved by a few. It is GNU and is basically a Command line editor like a DOS window. Takes a lot of getting used to, but is considered a classic.
• Arachnophilia - This is a program that has been around a while. I have never used it, but have heard often that it is very simple and therefore is a excellent editor for beginners learning HTML.
• Selida - Another editor I have come across in forums, so it does have a following but I have no personal experience with it.

Shareware

• skEdit - Never used it but was suggested to me in a forum. Shareware (but quite affordable I find).
• HotDog - This program has been around for sometime. It was often supplied in computer magazines in Germany. I have not heard of it in years but it is still out there. It is a name in the industry, but I know no one who uses it so cannot say much more about it.
• CoffeeCup HTML Editor - I have used CoffeCup software and generally it is very good. I have not however used the editor, but have heard good things about it.
• AceHTML - A shareware editor with a decent reputation.
• NetObjects Fusion - Ok this is tricky. This software has rated well often. It is especially good for creating e-commerce sites and Database driven web sites. What keeps me from praising it however is the way it works. Even the worst editors allow some access to the HTML behind the web site. Fusion however uses it’s own propriety code created as you drag and drop elements on the screen. Only once the web site is finished and is to be published, is the propriety code then translated into HTML. This means at no time can you switch to HTML view to tweak a element. This program goes out of it’s way to keep you away from the code, so it is fine for those with no interest in learning how to really build sites. PC Pro Magazine liked it and claims it creates accessible web sites, that I do not believe so will see if I can get a copy to test one of these days, till then, it rates well but I dislike your inability to modify code during development. You will find a full review in the link to Urban75 listed at the bottom of this page.

Mac

(with special thanks to the members and management of Mac Community Feedback who supplied me with info as I am not a Mac user.)

Freeware

• Creatext - I think about the most popular pure Mac editor, highly recommended to me.
• Nvu - originally made for Linux, it is also available for Mac and Windows. It is being re-vamped and is said to be earmarked to replace the editor for Mozilla, it is also being released as a extension for Firefox. It is a WYSIWYG and good for those with little knowledge of HTML. I know many people in forums who swear by it.
• Emacs - Loved by a few. It is GNU and is basically a Command line editor like a DOS window. Takes a lot of getting used to, but is considered a classic.
• Taco HTML Edit - Sorry, no info. Taco HTML Edit is a full-featured HTML editor and PHP editor distributed as freeware. As an HTML editor, Taco HTML Edit empowers its users to rapidly create their own web sites. It is designed exclusively for Mac OS X and has many advanced features including spell checking, live browser previewing, PHP previewing, syntax checking, and much more. - the official web site

Shareware

• BBEdit - I have heard of it but know little. BBEdit is the leading professional HTML and text editor for the Macintosh. Specifically crafted in response to the needs of Web authors and software developers, this award-winning product provides a plethora of features for editing, searching, and manipulation of text. BBEdit transforms text with high performance.
• Rage Web Design - Sorry, no info.
• PageSpinner - Sorry no info. Page Spinner is the easy-to-use, professional HTML editor for Mac OS supporting HTML 3.2, HTML 4, XHTML, PHP, SSI plus additional Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer extensions and a built-in JavaScript generator.
• Tag - Sorry, no real info or experiance with this one.
• Tumult HyperEdit - Sorry, no real info or experiance with this one.

Linux

(with special thanks to the members and management of Linux Linux LINUX who supplied me with info as I am not a Linux user.)

Freeware

• Vim - I played with this in school, actually meant for Linux it has a steep learning curve as it works more with command line sort of work. But if you take the time to learn it is is very powerful. Vim is charityware
• Nvu - originally made for Linux, it is also available for Mac and Windows. It is being re-vamped and is said to be earmarked to replace the editor for Mozilla, it is also being released as a extension for Firefox. It is a WYSIWYG and good for those with little knowledge of HTML. I know many people in forums who swear by it.
• Quanta - Sorry, no info on this. Quanta Plus is a web development tool for the K Desktop Environment. Quanta is designed for quick web development and is rapidly becoming a mature editor with a number of great features. - the official web site
• Kate (KDE Advanced Text Editor) - Sorry, no info on this. Kate is a multi document editor, based on a rewritten version of the kwrite editing widget of KDE, offering all the features of that plus a bunch of its own. Kate has been been moved to the kdebase package, and is a built in part of your favorite desktop since release 2.2.
• Emacs - Loved by a few. It is GNU and is basically a Command line editor like a DOS window. Takes a lot of getting used to, but is considered a classic.

Other languages

CSS

• TopStyle CSS - My choice for CSS work, also comes in a free light version, at least older versions of it.
• EditCSS - A Firefox Extention suggested by tpattison below.
• Cascade - Free CSS.

PHP

• EditPlus2 - My earliest editor for PHP programming, really nice tools and plugins. I still use it sometimes.
• PHP Designer - A freeware PHP editor with a decent reputation, from the creators of HTML Gate.
• Rapid PHP - PHP editor, never used it but it comes well praised to me. Shareware / Windows.

XML

• XMLSpy - Likely the default XML editor on the market. Shareware.

Others

• Xstandard - XStandard is said to write the Purest standards based code of any WYSIWYG editor. It is meant for Content Management Systems (CMS), it opens in your default browser (NOTE: It uses Active-X so only works under Windows OS at this time, but a Mac OS X version is in Alpha testing.).).
• GWD Text Editor - I have never used it but it was praised in a couple of forums. Windows Shareware. GWD Text Editor is a powerful general purpose editor for plain text files and integrated developer environment for Borland C++, Java and Euphoria compilers. - the official web site
• TinyMCE - another WYSIWYG editor meant for use in a CMS. This will work under Mac, Windows and Linux.
• widgEditor - from my understanding this will work with both Mac and Windows.
• FCKEditor - This too is a CMS editor that works on all operating systems.

Finally, Urban75 has a very good Group Test of WYSIWYG Editors covering many of these.